


The Final Trial

by Aisynia



Category: Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Inquisitorius - Freeform, Pre-Battle of Yavin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25219207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aisynia/pseuds/Aisynia
Summary: While hunting a Jedi Master, an Inquisitor is forced to reflect on her past.
Kudos: 1





	The Final Trial

**Author's Note:**

> Me and my gaming group are going to be running a Star Wars tabletop game soon. When discussing the backstory of my character (Nismi Pahono) and my friend's character (Fourth Sister), I was going to propose a basic idea for a scene that we wouldn't get a chance to actually roleplay. That basic outline quickly got out of hand and became this short story, which she (thankfully) loved. With permission, I have decided to post it here.
> 
> This story takes place in 2 BBY, some time after the Rebels season 2 finale. Following this episode, we never again saw an Inquisitor, so this was written under the assumption that they have been all but destroyed.

Fourth Sister had at last cornered the old Jedi Master, a Chalactan by the name of Nismi Pahono. She was said to be a cunning General in the Clone Wars, and had killed two other inquisitors, but the Sister knew she was beyond most of her brethren, easily a match for the late Grand Inquisitor himself.

The Chiss Sister of the Inquisitorius ignited her crimson saber in single bladed mode and smiled, “Nowhere left to run Jedi.”

“You speak as if you weren’t once a Jedi yourself,” the master’s stance remained neutral as they begin circling one another in the filthy back alley, the old master not even hinting at movement to reach for her saber, “I don’t know you, but I’ve seen so many like you, lost to the darkness because you can see no other way.”

“I abandoned the Order because they led an army of child slaves into a senseless war!” the Fourth Sister shouted angrily, leaping as she attacked.

The master quickly ignited her indigo lightsaber to defend herself. Their weapons clashed, energy flickering and sparking, blades humming as they began their game, seeing who would leave an opening first.

“You’re right!” the Sister was surprised to hear that from the old master, “But is it worth what you’ve done!? We were wrong, I know that now, I’ve had time to think on it! Far too much time! But is it worth this?! The deaths of so many? People who were your friends and your family, who cared for you, despite their flaws? Was it worth the casting of a great shadow across the galaxy?!”

“I see only order where there was chaos!” the inquisitor growled as their sabers locked together, and she leaned in close, “the republic was corrupt! It deserved to fall!”

“Perhaps it did, but to be replaced by the empire!?” Master Pahono narrowed her eyes as they backed off, only for the Sister to press the attack, and yet the old master kept talking, “Did you want an empire ruled by Sith Lords!? Is this what you wanted!? A return to the Sith Empire of ages past!? You hated the war, and the corruption, you hated the loss of lives, and yet you serve the most evil and corrupt institution in the last 3,000 years!”

The Fourth Sister didn’t want to listen anymore, old Master Pahono was one of them, wasn’t she? A former Jedi General! A hypocrite! And yet what angered her the most in that tiny moment between saber clashes, even if she didn’t want to admit it to herself, was that the old master might be right.

"I can sense the conflict in you!" Master Pahono said in a desperate tone.

"There is no conflict,” the Sister snarled and focused on her deep connection to the force, throwing out an intense Force Push, tossing the master across the alley and slamming her into a wall, “I won’t listen to your lies anymore! I will kill you and I will earn the favor of my emperor!"

"But there _is_ conflict!” Master Pahono said as she pulled herself from the ground, raising her lightsaber just in time to block a volley of the inquisitor’s lighting, “even if you were not happy with the Jedi, you know this never should have happened! They tortured you didn't they!? They made you bend to their will!"

"I make my own decisions!!" she found herself screaming as she leapt through the air at incredible speeds and slashed at the relic of a Jedi once again.

"Are you so sure, Padawan!?” Master Pahono groaned as she barely fended off the attack and then tried to press an attack of her own, which the Sister absorbed with a force barrier, “you refer to the emperor, your _master_ , with reverence, but I can hear the unsteadiness in your voice! I can feel your uncertainty through the force, your humiliation!"

"Silence!” she screamed, surprising herself as she unleashed strike after brutal strike, “Die Jedi!"

She slashed and hacked and the master blocked and deflected each blow. The Fourth Sister knew her mastery of the force far outshone her skill with a saber, but so incensed was she at the implication, she had lost control.

"I see a puppet,” Nismi easily defended against her blows, and then backed up as the inquisitor’s hands erupted with lightning, barely blocking the shock with her saber, and yet she spoke, “I see your strings, I see your cage, a prison!"

"I am no puppet! I am no prisoner!"

"Some prisons we carry with us! Some prisons we lock ourselves into! They took your dignity, they took your free will, and convinced you it was your choice! It's a lie! Search your feelings!"

The Sister’s eyes widened at those words, her breath became unsteady, shallow and rapid. The last years streamed through her mind, the abuse at the hands of the Grand Inquisitor, at the hands of Vader! She froze, terrified that what the old master was saying might be true.

Was she right? Could the old master know her heart better than she did? Or had the Sister known all along and simply hadn’t listened?

Snapping out of it, she looked around. Master Pahono was gone...

The Fourth Sister screamed and collapsed before Vader, gripping the stump of her arm. Fighting back the pain, she looked up at Vader as he put his lightsaber away.

"You _stink_ of failure!" he scoffed.

"It is only a temporary setback my lord, I promise, I _will_ kill her!" her voice was desperate, she knew the price of failing too often.

"Perhaps you will, or perhaps you need more training." Vader’s voice, and the thought of enduring more of his “training”, chilled her to her core, “If there were not so few inquisitors left, that would be your head on the ground, and not your arm.”

“Y-yes Lord Vader.” The cold. The fear. The anger. The hatred. Is was as if a wave had crashed over her soul. His connection to the dark side was beyond anything she had ever achieved, something she had known he had intentionally held the inquisitors back from, and yet, this was the first moment she did not regret achieving more.

“I will send Third Brother after Pahono, perhaps he will succeed where you have failed,” Vader turned back to her, “I have another task for you. We have been searching for another old master since the end of the Clone Wars, and imperial intelligence has finally found him. You are to intercept his cruiser in the Raxus system. Board it, and slay the master and any padawans he may have escaped with.”

“Lord Vader,” she swallowed hard, “if this master had padawans, they could be fully fledged Jedi by n- b- by no-”

She tried to speak, but couldn’t. Vader stood over her, his fingers curled as he choked her through the force. Even as she sat haphazardly on the ground, she struggled, stars swimming in her vision.

“This Jedi Master must be very old by now,” Vader said between the pumps of his respirator, “Any Jedi he trained will not have the benefit of specialized training, or the Order as a whole.”

She gasped as finally, the Darth released her and began to walk away, only to stop and turn, gesturing to her stump, “get that replaced before you leave. Do not fail me again.”

She knew better than to talk back a second time, and yet Master Pahono’s words echoed in her mind.

_Puppet._

_Prison._

Cutting the engines of her TIE Advanced v1, The Fourth Sister let her small ship coast in towards the _Pelta_ -class frigate. It was cruising on low power at the edge of the system, she almost didn’t catch it.

The old frigate was in relatively good shape for its age, though the paint job was fairly worn down. She narrowed her piercing red eyes as she got closer to it. The paint job seemed familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it.

Firing the cold gas thrusters, she brought the TIE up to one of the frigate’s airlocks. She latched on, and was hopeful that she hadn’t made too much of a racket as she unstrapped herself and climbed over to the docking port. The computer flashed red three times, then green—the docking seal was solid.

Cautiously, she activated the door, which slid aside. It felt almost too quiet as she stepped into the frigate’s airlock and began slicing the computer to gain access to the interior.

She stopped for a moment, and blinked a few times. She felt a presence in the force, a strong presence. It was familiar. She had felt it before, but couldn’t place it. It had been so many years, but she knew it…

Shaking off the distraction, she continued her work, and finally, pressing a button, the inner door slid aside. The faint scent of incense immediately filled the air. Memories of her childhood at the Jedi Temple flooded in. The kind smiles and encouraging words of her teachers echoed through her mind, and seemed to pull at her through the force.

But she was beyond that, she had left it behind, she would not allow herself to be distracted!

Moving into the ship, she was overcome with a sense of familiarity, she had been here before. She had been on _this_ ship.

Moving along through the corridor, she felt the presence more strongly, and began to move towards it, and yet it seemed to shift and move. She spun around, igniting her saber, but nothing was there. She stared into the void of the hallway, and she saw an array of Jedi markings on the walls. Memories from long ago continued to flood back in, memories she had pushed away, memories she did not want to face any longer, reminders of who she once was.

Her heart racing, she let out a breath to try and steady herself, and deactivated the saber. Only to turn around and gasp.

At the end of the hallway stood a tall, dark man, bald, with a goatee and a gentle expression on his face.

“Hello Izera,” the man said patiently, his hands joined behind his back, “welcome back aboard _Athylia_.”

“..Master Beq..” her heart dropped as all the memories flooded in.

He had been kind to her. He had abstained from the war. He wanted only to teach, and teach he did. Encouraging, kind, inspiring, and even funny, she had admired Master Kelleran Beq a great deal. He was the kind of Jedi that she had wanted to be some day. Then the Clone Wars came…

“So you remember me,” he smiled, “I’m glad. You were one of my most promising students. You resisted the call of the dark side during your trials, even when your fellow students took the easy path.”

The Sister sucked in a breath, her chest shuddering, “That was a long time ago Master Beq, and you know why I’m here.”

“I do.. you are here to face your greatest trial,” the certainty in his voice cut through her bravado, and left her feeling exposed somehow.

“I.. what?” she blinked a few times as she looked down at the saber she held, then back up to him, “No, that is not why I’m here, and you know it.”

“The Force moves through each of us in its own way Izera,” his voice was free of judgment, “while I cannot fathom the deepest mysteries of the force more than anyone else, I do know it guides us, if we let it.”

How could he be so gentle when he knew she came to kill him? How could he still be exactly as she remembered? How could everything that had happened not have dampened his spirit?

“I believe the Force brought you to me,” he continued, “I believe you were meant to be here, to free yourself of your _prison_. _That_ is your final trial.”

 _Prison_.

The word echoed in her mind. It cut deeply within her.

“No!” she shouted, igniting her lightsaber, “You’re trying to manipulate me!”

“Lie to yourself if you must, but not to me,” Master Beq replied, not harshly as the words might imply, instead, there was a sense of… sadness behind them, “I’ve heard of what they do to turn the Inquisitors. That is their armor you wear, is it not, Izera?”

“I am the Fourth Sister!” she leapt at him in a rage, but he easily brought his amethyst saber up and deflected her attack, “Hreni'zer'ainoshe is dead! She was killed by the Jedi! Betrayed when they marched to war!”

“I won’t defend the war,” Master Beq replied calmly as he disengaged and took a step back, deactivating his saber, and leaving the Sister confused, “but I will defend _you_. What did they do to you Izera?”

“I-” she couldn’t believe she was going to answer. Rage surged through her, she raised her hands, she could feel the lightning coursing through her veins, ready to strike, and yet, she sighed, and slouched, letting out a deep breath, “I was already going to turn…” she looked up to him, her voice laced with a sense of defeat, “Don’t you understand that? The Jedi were wrong, I… I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“And yet you had many paths before you,” again his voice was free of judgment, “what made you choose this one?”

“I- I wanted to...” she was lying, she could barely force the words from her throat. She turned her watering eyes up to him, “They did things to me... terrible things… I felt I had.. I felt I had no other choice. I- I made my choice. I did what I had to...”

“ _Did_ you have to?” he joined his hands behind his back once again, a gentle, understanding expression on his face, “Search your feelings Padawan...”

She closed her eyes tight against the images as they flashed through her mind, but they wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t just the torture and the pain, it was the resentment she held towards the Order—but no, she did not have to take that path. She could have fought back against her captors. Or she could have left the Order earlier.

“I did not, Master Beq,” she said quietly, dejected, a tear slipping down her face, “I became a slave.. I turned myself into a slave.. because I was angry, and I was terrified. I couldn’t stand against Darth Vader, I couldn’t stand against the Emperor. I allowed them to control me.. a.. a puppet. Strings and all. I don’t..” she turned her eyes back to him, another pair of tears falling away, “I don’t know what I can do anymore, everything I thought I was… was a lie.”

“Come, sit,” he turned his back to her as he stepped from the corridor onto _Athylia’s_ bridge. It would have been so easy to kill him, but instead, she followed.

She slumped heavily into one of the bridge’s engineering seats, and he sat across from her.

“I feel as if.. everything I knew about myself has been.. torn down,” she said with an empty stare.

“Then we will build you back up,” he smiled, “close your eyes, feel the force.”

“Guided meditation?” she almost scoffed at him, but then decided to humor him, despite her skepticism.

“To overcome a pain, we must understand it,” he said softly, his words conjuring images in her mind, images not just of the torture at the Fortress Inquisitorius, but of her sense of betrayal as the vaunted peace-keeping religious order she had been so proud to be part of marched arrogantly into a senseless war fought by child slaves.

He gently guided her through the entire chain of events that made up so much of her life, from her wide eyed youth, to her descent into the abyss of darkness. She told him what she saw, and sometimes, when she was too afraid, she would feel his hand rest upon hers, a subtle reminder that she was no longer alone.

“I feel.. different...” she said after after a long moment of silence, “unburdened somehow. I’m still hurt, but I have a new perspective. I never had a choice. I was given to the order as a little girl by parents terrified that the Ascendancy might find me. I was trained as a Jedi, I lived as a Jedi, but I never felt like I had a choice. I know some people have left the Order before, but I dismissed the thought, I didn’t even allow myself to think it.

“But I should have,” she let out a soothing breath, “I should have realized that the Order was not _for_ me. Instead, when it all came crashing down, I threw myself into the dark side, because at the hands of Vader and his Inquisitors, and in the bleak light cast by the Jedi and their war, I felt trapped. I wanted to belong. But I didn’t, not as a Jedi, and not as an Inquisitor. Because I never really chose, I never truly made my own choice. I was disillusioned with the Jedi and the Republic, but the Empire was not the answer I told myself it was, it was worse, and I fed into it, and I lied to myself. I won’t do that anymore.”

“I’m glad,” Master Beq stood, “and what _is_ it you choose?”

“Whatever the force has in store for me, I couldn’t begin to tell you,” she said as she looked up to him, “but I _will_ make my own choices from now on. I am done fighting. I won’t fight for the Jedi, and I won’t fight for the Empire. If I ever fight again, it will be _my_ choice.”

“Well spoken, you have passed your final trial,” Master Kelleran Beq said as he ignited his lightsaber, and yet she did not flinch as he moved the blade near each of her shoulders, and then above her head, “By the right of the Council, by the will of the Force, you may rise, Jedi Knight Hreni'zer'ainoshe. And.. I dismiss you from the Jedi Order, something that should have been done long ago, not because you did not deserve to be among us, but because we did not deserve you. Your path lies elsewhere, and I hope you find it.”

“I, well.. thank you, Master Beq,” she felt a smile cross her lips, but then reality sank back in, and she hurried over to _Athylia’s_ pilot seat.

Sitting down, she pulled a small datacard from inside her bracer, slid it into the navigational computer, and began inputting commands.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he stepped up behind her, his tone curious, and free of accusation.

“I know you have padawans on this ship,” she replied as she pressed a few more buttons, a small screen flooding with data, “I can feel them.. now that I’m no longer so clouded. I found you because the _Empire_ knows how to find you now. They’ll send others, and I don’t know if you can talk all of them out of a fight, especially if Vader comes for you himself. I’m programming your navigational computer with a list of imperial transit codes and transponder data. It should allow you to slip away and remain undetected for the foreseeable future.”

“That’s thoughtful of you Izera, it’s greatly appreciated.”

“It’s the least I could do,” she punched in one last command and then stood up, “I.. I’m really not the hugging type.. or I would hug you right now. I need to go, and so do you. Get _Athylia_ out of this system as fast as you can. Get your students far away from here.”

“I will,” he smiled, “Go in peace Izera.”

“I.. um, thank you Master Beq,” she offered a small smile and then quickly made her way back to the airlock.

Once she was back in her fighter and released the docking clamps, it was only a matter of a minute or so before _Athylia_ jumped away.

Izera would have felt relieved, but she knew that the tricks she gave to Master Beq wouldn’t work for her. She had to run, she knew they would catch up eventually, but she wasn’t going to make it easy for them. As she looked through her navigational computer and tried to decide on a destination, she remembered Master Beq’s words.

She closed her eyes, and let the force guide her hand.

“Of course,” she said as she nodded to herself, making sure this was her choice and not what someone else might expect of her.

No, for the first time, perhaps ever, her decisions were her own, the force was her companion, not her master. She set a course for the Mygeeto system, where she had fought Master Nismi Pahono only days before, and began calculating the jump.

This made a strange kind of sense. Perhaps together, they could ward off their hunters and find a place where they could lay low while she figured out where her path would lead her.

**Author's Note:**

> Jedi Master Kelleran Beq is from the new Star Wars game show "Jedi Temple Challenge" played by Ahmed Best (also known for playing Jar-Jar and getting a lot of undo hatred). Ahmed was allowed to develop much of Kelleran's personality and backstory, so while the individual episodes may or may not be canon, the characters and general scenario are. I have absolutely fallen in love with Kelleran as a character, a gentle, funny Jedi Master who is dedicated solely to teaching. I think he is a very positive character and I saw a good opportunity to include him.


End file.
